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// Chapter 8: Hoof Camp 
// Story: The Elements of Honor 
// by Flanagan 
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“There’s no doubt in my mind that that could have gone better…” Long Shot said as the 1025th walked out of the throne room. It was still early in the morning, Princess Celestia had barely started to raise the sun and the normally stoic and impressive Canterlot royal guard was still shaking the sleep out of themselves.
“Yeah, but at least we still have our health,” Patches pointed out, “we could have spent the rest of our lives in the Canterlot dungeons, and I don’t have enough anti-bacterial soap for Cannon Fodder if that were to happen…”
The 1025th erupted in laughter, Patches never really said anything to be funny, but when she did, it was golden. Cannon Fodder looked at her in a rather embarrassed way, but they continued down the long walkway towards their rooms. As they had their personal conversations, the subject was brought up about Warhammer’s strange interaction with the Princess of the Night.
“So, Warhammer,” Flare Flash said initiating the new group discussion, “how does it fell to be inches away from an alicorn?” Warhammer remained silent, still looking forward as if nopony had said anything to him.
“Was she even better looking up close?”  Tower Shield asked, trying to get a response from Warhammer, but as with Flare Flash’s attempt, it was met with the same results.
“I’m sure she’s a lot like her sister,” Lug Nut said, not even trying to talk to Warhammer, “after all, they share the same blood and they are both alicorns. Princess Luna is just one thousand years out of the loop, she’ll-”
“She’s nothing like her sister,” Warhammer said as the rest of the 1025th paused to hear him speak, “something in her eyes told me that she has something held deep inside her, something that truly bothers her, even to this day and it is not the fact that she was Nightmare Moon, it goes far deeper than that.” He paused himself and looked back down the way they had come. “Her eyes told me that a part of her heart is missing...”
“I liked you better when you didn’t talk, little bro.” Battleaxe said breaking the silence of the 1025th. “And no matter what you ‘saw’ in her eyes, we all must remember that it’s ridiculously early, we got done partying only a few hours ago, and tonight we have to start training a large group of ponies who two days ago tried to kill us. I don’t know about you little bro, but I’m going to need some sleep before that.”
Warhammer looked at his brother with a slight bit of anger, but in a very small way he was right. The 1025th needed to get plenty of rest if they were to begin training Princess Luna’s guards. They all knew that many of them would still be quite angry at them for what had happened only a short time ago. All they could do was hope that their dedication to Princess Luna would keep them focused on their training and not on killing their trainers. The 1025th arrived at their quarters a few minutes later all taking their respective rooms, with the exception of one.
As Patches closed her door, but soon after she heard a small quiet knock, though she was very tired she walked to her door to open it. As she did it revealed a sky blue stallion standing at her front door, a single rose in his mouth.
“Comet,” she said with a small tired smile, “you know that I can’t have stallions in my quarters, Commander Garrison’s orders.”
“That hasn’t stopped us for the past year, Patches.” Comet said placing the rose in her mane. “It was the only one in the royal garden that could come close to your beauty.”
“Such a charmer,” she said kissing him on his cheek. “It’s a real mystery why you don’t have a mare back in Cloudsdale for you.”
“I did,” Comet said sarcastically smiling a bit. “But I was going to tell you about that soon, I swear.”
“Right,” Patches said smiling back at him. “You’ve been seeing me for nearly a year, but decide to tell a stallion who didn’t even know who he was that you dated a pony like Spitfire for a while, no big deal right?”
“I know I should’ve told you sooner, Patches,” Comet said, his smile gone. “But I thought if you knew that you would want nothing to do with me. I wanted you to know that you were special to me.”
“Comet,” Patches said placing her hoof on his face, drawing him closer to her. “You don’t have to prove yourself like that, you’re always putting others in front of yourself, so much that you don’t realize that you’re standing in the fire you’ve been trying to keep them away from.” Patches kissed him lightly on the lips.
“It’s just who I am, Patches,” Comet said his smile had returned, “If I can save at least one life at the cost of my own, I will consider my life one lived well.”
“Just remember that THAT type of talk is for one who feels the he has little to live for.” Patches replied kissing him again. “And I think that I could find a mare in this room that would argue that.”
“Gee, you wonder where I could find this mare you speak of?” Comet said as he walked into Patches’ room, “I might need some help finding her, could she be in the bed?” Comet started to walk towards her perfectly made bed.
“Oh I don’t know…” Patches said giggling, “I guess I could help you a little bit before I go to sleep.” Patches walked by Comet giving him a small kiss as they fell into the bed together.
The hours of the ordinary day passed like mere minutes to Greatsword as he woke up from his slumber. He had another dream, this one was of the mare professing her love for the stallion, and the stallion doing the same as well as what happened afterward. He never had a dream like that before; his heart was still pounding from the experience.  Such a love between two ponies, and he had forgotten who she was, or this mare was just a dream that was just keeping him up, he didn’t know. That was a common occurrence for the past week of his life, and he was growing tired of it, he just wanted to know, that was all he really wanted, closure for everything. He looked at the clock on the wall, 1300 it said, he still had nearly six hours to sleep before he was needed, but he couldn’t sleep, not after what he saw in his dream. 
“I’ve GOT to know soon.” he said to himself, “It’s killing me NOT knowing.”
The next six hours passed like molasses before the winter wrap-up, at least to Greatsword. Who, as his brothers woke up, was looking out their room’s window, casting his troubled gaze across Canterlot. His brothers noticed that he seemed to be acting a bit strange, even to them, so they went to his side.
“You alright, bro?” Battleaxe said, walking closer to him “How long have you been sitting there?”
“Near six hours, Battleaxe,” Greatsword responded still looking out to Canterlot, “Let me ask the two of you something…” his voice became cold “do you ever have dreams about the time before?”
“What?” Battleaxe asked back, “Not sure I’m following you…”
“The time before…” Greatsword repeated his tone hadn’t changed, “Do you have visions or flashbacks? Memories, dreams or anything that seems to have stuck to your conscious?” Greatsword turned towards his brothers, a look of despair in his eyes. “Something that’s trying to remind you of who you once were?”
“I can’t say I do, big bro,” Battleaxe said wincing seeing his brother in this odd condition, “maybe we can ask Princess Celestia, or somepony who might be able to help you.”
“We both know that Princess Celestia has nothing for us,” Greatsword said firmly placing his hoof on the ground, “and if she doesn’t then nopony does…” He grabbed Battleaxe by his shoulders and began to shake him violently “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH ME?!”
“WHY THE HELL WOULD I KNOW?!” Battleaxe yelled back, “Now get off of-“
“I know I do not speak much,” Warhammer began and gaining the other two’s attention “but that is only because I rarely have anything to say. Greatsword whatever it is you are seeing in your dreams is what is keeping you going, giving you reason to press on, what that reason is I don’t know, but you must find that reason. That is the purpose of those dreams, but now you must give others reason to do the same. The Lunar Stallions are lost without the strong to teach them how to be strong themselves, make that your purpose now and after we can further examine what you see while you sleep.”
Greatsword looked up at his ‘little’ brother, it seemed that all the things that were destroying his mind had stopped for those brief few moments that Warhammer spoke. He was right, he had to be strong, not for just himself but for his brothers, for the 1025th and oddly for the Lunar Stallions. Greatsword got up from his seat and walked towards his brothers.
“You’re right,” he stated “we must stay strong we must not break, it is our duty to not do so, we must keep our will strong and we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for our peers, we must do it, on our HONOR.”
The evening began, Princess Luna watching closely over the upcoming activities, some three hundred Lunar Stallions were there for the first day, or as it be night of their training. Commander Garrison stood on a raised platform, with the rest of the 1025th, he was pacing back and forth as if he were sizing up every individual stallion that was present in the crowd. After a few long minutes he spoke.
“We are the 1025th, of special operations division in the equestrian military, but you all knew that already.” Commander Garrison’s voice was harsh and cut into the stallions in front of their ’formation’. 
“We are here to make you all worthy of defending Princess Luna.” upon the mention of her name a roar of joy began to rush through the crowd, but it was quickly silenced by the Commander’s powerful voice. “I DIDN’T SAY YOU COULD TALK!” he roared at them. “For the next few months you will be learning proper military procedures, drill, tactics, first aid, weapons training, hoof to hoof combat and military history, do you all understand?” the crowd was silent, this only made the Commander roar at them again, “I SAID DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”
“Yes… sir…” a few responded meekly.
“WHAT?!” Commander Garrison yelled at them.
“Yes, sir…” most called out but still very quietly.
“YOU GOTTA SPEAK UP!” the Commander yelled “BECAUSE I DON’T SPEAK BITCH!”
“YES SIR!” all the stallions roared at the insult.
“Good,” the Commander said, “now, break into groups of seventy, and fall in towards your respective Drill Instructors... DO IT NOW!”
The stallions quickly followed the orders of the Commander those who remained after they were split into seventy were divided amongst the groups already seventy full, but around twenty of them were taken by Commander Garrison personally, they would be Princess Luna’s Elite. Their training began, slowly for the first night, but the nights after would prove to test the mettle of everypony involved.
Three weeks had passed, and the 1025th had been doing the same thing every night, pushing the Lunar Corps to their breaking point and beyond. Temperatures flared from time to time, but overall the Stallions had been doing quite well. Princess Luna had come to see how the training was going for her guards, first she inspected Commander Garrison’s group. 
They were already weeks ahead of the other groups because of the Commander’s nonstop training, and if he had his way they would be training until the end of the one year sentence, but that decision was Princess Luna’s to make, nit his. She then moved toward the next group of stallions, Greatsword and Warhammer’s. She was surprised to see that they were not far behind in training compared to Commander Garrison’s twenty. The leadership of the two stallions must have been extraordinary. She called them over to her, to express her gratitude towards them and tell her how impressed she was.
“My lady,” Greatsword said as he and Warhammer bowed towards her, “to what do we owe this great honor?”
“WE SIMPLY WISH TO EXPRESS HOW GRATEFUL WE ARE TO-” she cut herself off mid-sentence, remembering that she was using her royal Canterlot voice. “We mean, we want to just say that we are very happy that you have taken this so seriously.”
“It’s our job, my lady.” Greatsword said rubbing his ears, Warhammer just nodded. 
“Tell me Greatsword,” Princess Luna said to him in a questioning manner, “of the stallions under your charge who among them have the most ability?”
Without hesitation, Greatsword called two names from his roster, “NIGHT WING, DARK KNIGHT! To me NOW!” two Lunar pegasi rushed towards the call with intense speed. They stopped only inches in front of their two instructors. “These two are our best, my lady.” Greatsword said pointing at them, “They show a great deal of potential for being officers of your guard.”
“We see,” Luna said grinning, “perhaps a test, to prove their metal.”
“Whatever you can think of my lady, my boys are ready for the challenge.” Greatsword said confidently.
“Very, well,” Princess Luna responded “COMMANDER GARRISON, PROVIDE US YOUR BEST TWO! A COMPETITION IS TO BE HELD!”
“Excuse me, my lady?” Greatsword said with a great deal of confusion to the Princess, “A competition?”
“You said they were ready for ANY challenge,” Princess Luna said smiling, “and they will be their challenge.”
Greatsword looked past the Princess; he saw a massive Lunar earth pony and Lunar unicorn walk towards them. Greatsword looked back to the Princess in shock, but the only thing on her face was a massive smile, she hadn’t had this much fun in a long time. Then he looked back to Warhammer and his two trainees, they were just as surprised as he was, but the worst part was that he knew that there was no real way of getting out of this situation.
“Damn…” was all Greatsword could say.